Drying characteristics of blue mussels by traditional methods

In this study, characteristic drying behaviour and kinetics of blue mussels, which were dried with the traditional methods of cabinet-type, oven and vacuum oven drying, are studied. In a cabinet-type dryer there is air flow while in an oven dryer there is no air flow. In each method, Deff and Ea are calculated and colour analyses are done. According to the results, mussels are dried between 270-120 min, 570-300 min and 390-210 min, for the cabinet-type dryer, oven and vacuum oven, respectively. In each method, the Midilli and Kucuk model best fits experimental data with high coefficient of determination (R2) between 0.9995-0.9984, 0.9996-0.9993, and 0.9997-0.9993 for cabinettype, oven and vacuum oven dryer, respectively. Deff values were calculated between 1.89-4.94?10-9 m2/s, 0.89-1.63?10-9 m2/s and 1.17-2.28?10-9 m2/s for cabinet-type dryer, oven and vacuum oven methods, respectively. Also, Ea values were found to be 46.90, 29.57 and 32.85 kJ/mol, for cabinet-type dryer, oven and vacuum oven methods, respectively. The colour change was slightly affected by the change in the temperature.